The Night My Mother Died

The Night My Mother Died.

My mother's eyes had become hollow. She was always looking around but since she didn't wear her glasses anymore, and because she was as blind as a bat without them, her eyes were always searching yet unable to focus on anything. In those eyes was the constant look of fear. Fear of what, no one could say, especially Mom, because she couldn’t verbalize her thoughts. The look of anxiety was always on her face. While her mind was somewhere else, her body became a wreak. Her back formed a perfect "C" as if it had been molded into the wheelchair. Her shoulders had become thin and hunched; her legs turned into big bags of jelly from lack of exercise. My mother’s bottom had become huge from sitting all day long. Sometimes she forgot that she could no longer stand and when she tried to get out of the wheelchair by herself, she fell. Her face and arms were full of bruises from when she came tumbling down to the floor.

When Mom could no longer do her own toileting and had difficulty feeding herself, she was moved to the advanced care wing of the nursing home. All of her personal items were moved to her new room and anything that she couldn't take with her were donated to charity. The nurses in the advanced care unit simply could not attend to everyone’s need every minute of the day, so Mom had to wear diapers all of the time. She was given plastic pants to wear for easy access to the toilet. Aside from those pants, Mom always wore a t-shirt or sweatshirt, and an old pair of worn out shoes. The shoes were given to her by the nursing home because none of Mom’s old shoes fit. Her feet had become bloated, and otherwise disproportionately large, because of lack of use. It was a sad sight to see; a once proud woman who now looked like a homeless person in a wheelchair.

The other residents of the advanced care unit were even worse off. For example, one sweet looking old woman sat by herself in a corner and cussed like a sailor. Mostly, though, they were herded together in groups of five or ten wheelchairs, and they just sat there or slept. The wheelchairs were positioned to form circles so the residents could stare at each other all day. Very few people came to visit because what would be the point? There was not even a glint of recognition when a visitor entered the enclosure. I continued to see my mother out of a sense of duty, but I understood why other family members did not want to visit their loved ones in the nursing home. No one wants to see his or her parents live in purgatory.

Visitors cannot just walk into the advanced care unit when they want to see a resident. It is a secured facility and visitors have to ring a doorbell and wait for someone to let them in. However, the doorbell is difficult to hear, and a sign had been posted stating all visitors are to knock if no one answered the doorbell. In much smaller letters, the sign says that the visitors are to wait a few moments because the staff may be busy with the residents and it may take a few minutes for them to unlock the door. It always took a while, but eventually an over-worked, and apparently frustrated, nurse’s aide would open the door. There, in the middle of the common area, were all of the residents. The wheels from their wheelchairs are touching together and the residents were arranged in one large circle. They stare at each other all day. No one bothers to break away from the group because they had nowhere to go. It was an endlessly monotonous existence but the residents didn’t seem to care, probably because they had already lost their minds and nothing bothered them. They were in heaven’s waiting room.

When I find my mother among the other residents, I wheel her away from the larger group. No one notices that the circle has become broken and that one of the members is missing. Since I am not allowed to take my mother off the advanced care wing, I wheeled her over to an adjacent common room and try to strike up a conversation. Inevitably, after a few minutes, Mom asks me to take her to the bathroom. The only time that she speaks to me is when she needs to go to the bathroom. When I ask a staff member for assistance, she invariably tells me that my mother just went to the bathroom and she will have to wait in line. Several over residents had already asked to go and there were only two staff members working the floor. When I told Mom that she had to wait in line, she became irritated. She asked to go again but this time she was more demanding. Rather than cause a scene, I decided to say goodbye to my mother and make a quick exit. Every visit at the advanced care unit began and ended this way.

A good death is when the old person dies while surrounded by her family and friends. My mother did not have a good death. In fact, she had one of the worst deaths imaginable; alone, in a nursing home, miserable because she was in pain, and undignified because she was wearing a full diaper. She had taken all the precautions for a good death by making her wishes clear in a living will, so at least Mom did not have any tubes shoved down her mouth. Also in her favor, was my sister, Cheryl, who took a leave of absence from work to start a deathwatch. Cheryl stayed with Mom in her final days when she became comatose. I decided that there was no use in visiting Mom on her last days on earth because I thought that she was all but dead already. Besides, Cheryl is a nurse and could shepherd Mom through her final hours and I would simply be in the way.

Cheryl called me late at night. As soon as I heard her voice on the other end of the line, I knew what she had to say even before she had a chance to share the news. “Is it over,” I asked, plaintively. “Yes,” said Cheryl. “Mom has passed.” “I’ll be right over,” After a quick drive over to the nursing home, I entered my mother’s room and saw the corpse on the bed. The scene was so much like it had been over the course of so many Sunday visits; the same lifeless body and the same translucent skin devoid of any color. It was the same sight that I had seen so many times before, but now it was clear that Mom really was dead. Her head tilted back a bit, and her mouth was wide open, but the image that remained with me was that of Mom’s nose sticking up prominently from her face. It stood out like a lighthouse on top of the shoals of her face and body.

It was anti-climactic. There were no dramatic goodbyes; no deathbed confessions or anything like that you would see in the movies. I stood over Mom’s body for a while, awkwardly looking down at the corpse on the bed. Finally, after a long and empty pause, Cheryl returned to the room after having left to call for an ambulance. “It should arrive any minute to take the body away.” That was my cue to take my leave from the death room and let my sister finish her duties with preparing the body for transportation. My first thought, as I left the nursing home, was that I needed to go to the laundry so that I would have clean shirts for the visitation and funeral. Then, on the drive home, I silently cursed myself for thinking of only practical things when I should have been grieving the loss of my mother. I had mourned her dead on so many Sunday visits that I could not dredge up enough emotion to weep when it mattered the most. Silently, I drove back to my house, wondering what it meant that I couldn’t cry on the night my mother died.